The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest and most influential Protestant denomination in the United States. In 2021, the Southern Baptist Convention would make the fateful decision to waive attorney-client privilege and hire liberal attorneys to “investigate” themselves. The results have been a report that is inadmissible in court except as evidence of defamation by the multiple parties suing them. These lawsuits have mounting legal costs and have created a liquidity crisis. Last week, at an Executive Committee meeting, the SBC discussed using mission funds to finance the lawsuits citing that all other options have been exhausted.
Last week was a rare moment of self awareness for the Southern Baptist Convention. They seem to acknowledge the consequences of their actions and that this was a regretable path. However, they was no genuine repentance from leadership. As the 2021 decisions have proved disastrous years later, event the liberals are joining in on the denouncement of the messengers.
SBC Voices used to be a prestigious liberal blog in Southern Baptist life. Though not what it once was in influence, it still has a network of SBC influencers. They published an article: It’s official! Messengers were monumentally stupid in their sex abuse actions.
The executive summary would go something like this. Messengers approved motions that
(1) have had little or no positive effect on making children safer in our 50k or so churches, but
(2) have tied the SBC Executive Committee to enormous legal expenses as far as the eye can see. These expenses are not just those needed for defense of the SBC and the SBC EC but those needed to fulfill the EC’s contractual obligation to defend Guidepost Solutions from any lawsuits resulting from their work for the EC.
(3) If SBC messengers approve of the EC budget recommendations just made, we will skim the first $3 million from Cooperative Program giving in the new 2025-2026 budget year to pay EC costs, mostly legal.
(4) This “priority” CP allocation means that neither of the two mission boards, none of the six seminaries, nor the ERLC get one dime from those CP gifts. Their percentage allocations come only after the lawyers and lawsuit expenses.
(5) We have hired an EC staff guy who is being called the Sex Abuse Czar. Not sure I would want that unofficial title. He will have no say on any of our 50k churches hiring, supervising, or firing of staff. He will have no say on individual, autonomous church policies, actions or anything else. While he is committed, experienced, and respected in the field, it is unclear if he will be anything but a guy in a bully pulpit addressing the issue.
The SBC Voices crowd was not only on board with the motion that is referenced, they lobbied at the time to waive attorney-client privilege, partaking in the woke mob to pressure the Executive Committee to capitulate which they did after the vote initially failed.
Yes, Southern Baptist messengers were stupid in 2021. We said so at the time. But for liberals to pile on, is a face-saving maneuver that is thinly disguised.
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